LAPD Chief Charlie Beck spoke with the South LA residents at his forum in Exposition Park. | Photo by Etienne Smith

The Los Angeles Police Department is promising changes in the way it relates to the community, it announced just weeks after saying it would add more officers to South Los Angeles streets.

About 40 community members were present to hear Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck discuss the relationship between the city’s police and the community. The discussion, in the format of a breakfast, was held at the California African American Museum this past Friday.

“Everybody has a responsibility to make this a safer place to live,” Beck said, “a place our young people and all of us can go to have a sense of community.”

These types of forums began in 1999 to “[involve] minority communities in time-sensitive issues,” according to the forum’s website. On that Friday, the forum was discussion-based and then audience members asked questions to LAPD’s top man. The LAPD has evolved in its relationship to the South LA community. More efforts are being made to not just police the community, but work as partners with it.

In response to recent alleged incidents of police brutality, panelists talked about how citizens should interact with the police. | Charlie Magovern (Neon Tommy)

Educating residents on how to interact with law enforcement was at the top of the agenda for the “Know Your Rights” panel recently held in Compton. The event, held in the wake of the deaths of African Americans Sandra Bland and Sam DuBose, which involved police interactions that began as traffic stops that escalated in both cases. Panelists, pointing to these national headlines, stressed the importance of the black community knowing their civil rights in such situations.

Marion “Suge” Knight, 49, pleaded not guilty today to all charges stemming from a fatal hit-and-run committed in Compton last week.

The rap mogul, who appeared at a Compton courthouse this morning, denied the charges for murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run that the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office filed Monday.

During the hearing, Knight appeared calm and collected, politely addressing the judge’s questions. Afterwards, he was rushed to the hospital, where the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said he would undergo “treatment and evaluation.”

Knight is accused of deliberately running over Terry Carter, 55, and Cle “Bone” Sloan, 51, in the parking lot of a Compton burger joint on Thursday afternoon after an argument during the filming of Straight Out of Compton, a biopic about rap group NWA. Carter died in the incident, while Sloan was hospitalized for his injuries. [Read more…]

Congresswoman Karen Bass, from California’s 37th District, flew from Capitol Hill to Ferguson, Mo. to a South Los Angeles church last Saturday to gather a flock of concerned citizens in a town hall meeting to discuss new policing reforms for better relations between community members and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Two lines stretched down both sides of the church and Bass was kept an hour over schedule in order to hear every person who wanted to offer suggestions to improve police department behavior in the community. [Read more…]

Xinran Ji died from swelling and bleeding inside his brain after being struck on the head at least six times with a blunt object, possibly a baseball bat, testified a L.A. County medical examiner Wednesday as prosecutors revealed evidence about the killing.

The 24-year-old from China was attacked last summer in an attempted robbery near his apartment, blocks from where he studied engineering at the University of Southern California.

Deputy medical examiner Louis Pena said any one of six blows could have been fatal. Ultimately, the brain stem, which controls one’s breathing and heart rate, failed as capillaries ruptured and bled. [Read more…]

Xinran Ji sprinted into the middle of the street toward his apartment near the University of Southern California last summer as three attackers dashed after, striking him one by one with a baseball bat. The 24-year-old engineering student then staggered home, where officers found him dead the next morning.

This was the account prosecutors presented in court Tuesday as they revealed video footage of the July 24 attack on Ji, a USC graduate student from China.

“Once you know they were involved… it becomes clear who is who in the video, at least to me,” McKinney told reporters, holding a photo of Ji in graduation robes at his side. “And I think it will be to any fact finder.”

Jonathan DelCarmen, 19, and Andrew Garcia, 18, could face the death penalty for murder committed in the attempt of robbery. Two alleged accomplices, Alberto Ochoa, 17, and Alejandra Guerrero, 16 — exempt from capital punishment because they are minors — could face life in prison without parole. All are being held without bail.

USC tightened campus security following the spring 2012 murders of two graduate students from China, who were shot to death as they sat in a parked car near campus in what police called a robbery attempt gone wrong. And the university revved up safety measures yet again when an alleged gang member opened fire at a campus Halloween party the same year, wounding four people. Among the upgrades were installing security cameras and license plate readers.

About seven camera recordings painted a picture of the evening’s events, said Los Angeles Police Det. Matthew Courtney, who retrieved the footage from USC along with private companies. A university-operated license plate reader led officers to the defendants, he said.

The suspects circled the neighborhood in a dark, 1993 Honda Accord for several minutes before stopping near 29th and Orchard streets, said Courtney. There, a nearby camera captured three suspects exit the car and confront Ji, who had left the apartment earlier that evening for a study group on campus.

Ochoa was the first to turn the baseball bat on Ji, said the prosecutor. The suspect then passed it to Garcia, who chased Ji around the corner and slammed him again. Guerrero came quickly after, also striking Ji. DelCarmen drove behind the group, picking up his alleged accomplices.

Courtney said Ji’s roommate heard Ji sniffling when he returned around 3 a.m., but attributed it to a cold. She found him the next morning curled in his bed under a purple and white striped comforter, unresponsive.

When detectives entered, they discovered blood smeared on the floor, walls and bathroom sink. Red stains mottled Ji’s sneakers and white pants. As the prosecutor brought up an image of Ji’s white T-shirt soaked through in crimson, onlookers gasped, with one muttering: “Oh, God.”

A trail of blood splatters — on lobby walls, a UPS box and sidewalks — led detectives to the first attack site. Here, they recovered Ji’s metal-rimmed glasses, shattered.

The defendants watched these images projected onto a large screen attentively, without acknowledging each other or their families sitting alongside Ji’s supporters in the courtroom. DelCarmen, wearing a blue jumpsuit, and Guerrero, in orange, sat most of the day slouched and inexpressive. Ochoa, also clad in orange, raised his eyebrows and jiggled his right foot as the prosecutor displayed evidence. When a video of the attack was played, Ochoa took off his glasses and became still.

Garcia will be addressed separately. A judge said that the alleged accomplice, who made an outburst in court the day before, may be “incompetent to go through proceedings.” His lawyer did not attend Tuesday’s hearing.

A fifth person may also be involved: Prosecutors say a 14-year-old girl sat in the backseat of DelCarmen’s car. She has not been charged in Ji’s death. However, she is being prosecuted in juvenile court in connection with a second robbery that the gang attempted later that night at Dockweiler Beach.

One of two victims, Claudia Rocha, testified that she was sitting on a curb with a friend near a roadway overlooking the beach when Ochoa approached with a baseball bat over his shoulder. As he aimed it at her friend, Rocha suddenly found herself fending off the two girls.

“We just want the keys to the car,” she recalled Guerrero saying. Rocha responded she didn’t have a car, and Guerrero said, “Then give us your purse.” As Rocha resisted, Guerrero pulled out a pocket knife and slashed at her purse strap.

Police arrested all five suspects by the following morning, quickly linking their license plate and the bat to Ji’s killing.

McKinney will present additional evidence Wednesday, planning to call on Rocha’s friend, the coroner and other detectives to provide further details of Ji’s death.

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Javier Bolden, the last defendant involved in the 2012 murder of two USC graduate students, Ming Qu and Ying Wu, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole Monday morning.

Judge Stephen Marcus announced the decision about three weeks after a jury of seven women and five men found Bolden guilty in two counts of first degree murder as well as two other charges including attempted murder and assault with a firearm for a separate shooting of two victims at a party in February 2012. [Read more…]

Los Angeles city officials and law enforcement officers reinforced their plea Thursday for witnesses to come forward with more information about the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Ezell Ford, a mentally ill African-American man, by two Los Angeles Police Department officers more than three months ago.

“We are here today united in the search for truth,” L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters at a news conference. “The community, the poor family, our police officers and the city deserve nothing less.”

The LAPD expressed need for the community’s assistance in forming a clear account of the circumstances surrounding Ford’s death. Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said her office will also be accepting witness statements if the public does not feel comfortable reaching out to the LAPD. [Read more…]

Five courageous citizens were honored today at the final Courageous Citizen Awards ceremony of the year. | District Attorney Twitter

Three South Los Angeles residents were among the handful of Angelenos named recipients of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office’s Courageous Citizen Award because of their courage and acts of selflessness.

The award was created, according to the District Attorney’s office, to commend individuals who have acted with courage in the face of personal risk to help a victim of crime, capture a suspect or testify in high-pressure situations. The District Attorney presents the awards several times a year, and this season’s award presentation took place Wednesday. The program was started in 1986, according to a District Attorney spokesperson.

“Our community is a safer place because these local heroes refused to look the other way when others needed help,” District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement. “The courage displayed by each of these honorees is nothing short of remarkable.” [Read more…]

Los Angeles will soon see several dozen new billboards and posters across the city featuring digits outlined in bright teal – a hotline for human trafficking victims to get help. Human trafficking, while long associated with foreign countries, is a reality in the United States, and victims can include men and women of all ages.

Sex trafficking in particular has plagued Los Angeles, with young girls forced into prostitution by men who are often affiliated with gangs. Several main drags in South L.A., Hollywood and the Valley are some of the top pick-up spots on the West Coast.

In South L.A., the women walk past the liquor shops, storefront churches and schools lining Figueroa and Western, often wearing lingerie and mini skirts and high heels. In the dark of the night, they are some of the only people out and about.

County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas representing South L.A. said it’s “egregious” for so many minors to be trapped in such work.

“The problem is, to some extent a hidden one, a hidden one in plain sight,” he told Intersections.

He and other officials believe increasing public awareness is essential. They hope the billboards remind victims that they have options to escape.